Mussolini: Cover Boy

Did not like his cover photo

Benito Mussolini-cover of the final issue of L'Asino spring 1925 by Gabriele Galantara

L'Asino (The Donkey) was an Italian magazine of political satire founded in Rome on November 27, 1892.¹ The publication opposed the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini² and was forced to suspend publication in the spring of 1925 due to a new law that restricted press freedom.³ Mussolini did not like his cover photo by Gabriele Galantara.⁴

Mascha has reviewed the role of political humor expressed in early Italian satirical journals in the period 1919–1924. ⁵ The Press Office of the Presidency of the Council est. in 1922 controlled most of the literary and radio channels in Italy (later the Ministry of Popular Culture).⁶

Here are the archives of L’Asino.

1. Davis, John A. (2000), “Italy” pp. 81-124 in Goldstein, Robert Justin. 2000. The war for the public mind political censorship in nineteenth-century Europe. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

2. Mascha, Efharis. “Political Satire and Hegemony: A Case of ‘passive Revolution’ During Mussolini’s Ascendance to Power 1919–1925.” Humor (Berlin, Germany) 21, no. 1 (2008): 69–98.

3. Morganti, Emanuela. “L’Asino e Mussolini. Il Ventennio Del Circo.” Il Circo, XLIII (11), 2011. (The Donkey and Mussolini. The twenty years of the circus).

4. Podrecca, Guido, Gabriele Galantara, and Edio Vallini. 1973. L'Asino è il popolo: utile, paziente e bastonato. Milano: Feltrinelli.

5. Idid., Mascha.

6. Bonsaver, Guido. Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.